Abita Springs has claimed the title of the first community in Louisiana and among a select number of towns its size nationwide committed to a 100% renewable energy future. Located in St. Tammany Parish, the community is home to only a few thousand people.
Minnesota’s governor recently vetoed anti-renewables legislation that threatens rural solar development, but the bill’s likely resurgence means the state remains among a growing crop of Midwestern states facing the prospect of heavy-handed limitations on solar growth.
In this episode, Christopher Mitchell, the director of ILSR’s Community Broadband Networks initiative, interviews Hannah Trostle and Karlee Weinmann, Research Associates for the Community Broadband Networks and Energy Democracy initiatives, respectively.
Over nearly 15 years, Co-op Power has implemented practices that promote local ownership and greater community control. Owned by more than 500 members, Co-op Power includes a half-dozen individual energy co-ops in the northeast.
The ways in which municipal and cooperative utilities procure power undermine the ethic of community service and self-reliance.
placeholderIn March of 2016, we published a report on the state of rural electric cooperatives in the current electricity market: Re-Member-ing the Electric Cooperative. Below you will find our newly developed presentation based on this report. Forward and share widely.
Originally published on ilsr.org. Because they only sell 11% of the country’s electricity and they largely overlap politically conservative areas, electric cooperatives are often the forgotten stepchild of the clean energy movement. But with 7 of the top 10 dirtiest power systems (as measured by carbon intensity) and territory that overlaps some … [continued]
